Council to inform bin staff about redeployment posts

DUBLIN CITY’S 110 former bin workers are to be told on Friday what their new jobs in the council will be. The council ended its bin-collection service last Friday after 150 years.

Private company Greyhound Recycling and Recovery yesterday began collecting the bins of up to 140,000 customers in the city.

The company said customers had 30 days from yesterday to pay the annual service charge of €100

“The company will collect grey and brown bins during this period as long as customers have sufficient credit on the accounts to cover the respective grey (€6) and brown (€2) bin-lift charges. Green bins will be collected during the 30-day period free of charge.

“By 15th February, customers must have paid the €100 annual service charge and ensured that their account is in credit to meet the respective cost of each grey and brown bin lift to maintain service. After 15th February, green bins will only be collected from customers who have paid the annual service charge.”

Customers can choose, however, to have their bins collected by other service providers.

At a sometimes tense meeting yesterday at the Civic Offices, assistant city manager Séamus Lyons told the former binmen their “basic pay” would be protected following their redeployment to other departments. They may be reassigned to work in the parks, water, roads, housing or drainage sections.

A number expressed their anger that they still did not know where they would be working from next Monday.

Mr Lyons said final decisions on where the men will work from next Monday had not been made to allow them time this week to express preferences for different departments.

Also at issue was the €60 per week “glancing” allowance, which has been paid to men in the cleansing department since 1997, in recognition of the dirty and inclement conditions in which they had to work. Mr Lyons said the issue was still under discussion with unions Impact and Siptu.

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People Before Profit councillor Bríd Smith said the workers should not have their current wages cut as a result of the council’s withdrawal from waste collection “as the move from their jobs is a forced move”.